Voice-Over Casting Agencies and Agents

There are various relationships between clients, voice-over casting agencies, agents and voice-over talent. Voice-over casting agencies often act as the middle-man between the agent and the client or the voice actor and the client. Because casting agencies have a wide pool of talent to choose from, clients often go to them to hire a casting director to audition and hire talent for their needs. Casting agencies can contact voice-over agents to provide actors for auditions as well.

Let’s clear up the difference between a voice-over agent and a voice-over casting agency. An agent doesn’t typically do casting, they have a select roster of talent that they look to book auditions and jobs for. Think of an agent as a middle-man for auditions. When a client or casting director contacts them for a project, they send the auditions to their talent roster, listen to all that are submitted, and choose the best ones to showcase to the client or casting director. They’ll then help negotiate pay rates for the selected voice actor.

Advantages of working with a voice-over casting agency or an agent

There are opportunities for voice-over projects that wouldn’t be available on a pay-to-play website. For example, Nike will likely either use their in-house voice-over department for casting or hire a casting director. Are you hoping to be their next online voice-over actor for a post-roll ad (an online video advertisement that plays at the end of a video)? This opportunity may only come via a voice-over talent agency. As a voice actor, it’s a great way to get on-going work.

Disadvantages of working with a voice-over casting agency or an agent

There are opportunities for voice-over projects that wouldn’t be available on a pay-to-play website. For example, Nike will likely either use their in-house voice-over department for casting or hire a casting director. Are you hoping to be their next online voice-over actor for a post-roll ad (an online video advertisement that plays at the end of a video)? This opportunity may only come via a voice-over talent agency. As a voice actor, it’s a great way to get on-going work.

In terms of working with an agent, they usually take 10-15% of the pay for every job you book through them. We don’t recommend that you find one when you’re first getting started. Agents want to see that you’re already booking work before they want to include you on their roster. If you audition before you have the proper professional voice-over training and a good amount of finished jobs under your belt, you may never get asked back.

Getting jobs through an agency or an agent

The voice-over world is extremely competitive. Ideally, getting a job through a voice-over agent is easier because they have more opportunities available. However, whether you book jobs independently, with an agent, or through a voice-over casting agency, all can be viewed as ways to get work. Something that’s very important to bear in mind is with self-recorded auditions, you have to submit a clean audition, therefore, having a home studio and being a great editor will be an important skill to acquire whether you’re working with an agent, working on your own, or finding work through voice-over casting agencies.

Let’s say that there’s a particular company you’d love to work with, for example, PIXAR (for voice-over animation projects), you’d have to be signed with a casting agency or an agent that PIXAR works with. It would be extremely unlikely that you would book a job with PIXAR without a middle-man involved. Research such as this will save you time and keep you moving in the right direction for where you want to ultimately end up in your voice-over career.